A Snake Born of Lions
by Marcus Livius Drusus
Summary: Cunning, however born, quickly crowds out whatever traits grow nearby, leaving sustenance only for those aspects of the human character that lead to greatness, to status, to success, to power. And so by fate, or hap, or crook, Harry Potter grew into an uncommonly skilled Slytherian, a snake born of lions, a great man born of the good.
1. Chapter 1

He was living in an apartment in Knockturn alley, graduated now. A man of seventeen with a fortune, a future and a Hogwarts education. A man of ambition and, it is true, some renown. Though he would be the first to admit this renown was unearned, that one should hardly be lauded for the circumstances of one's birth and early childhood—however unlikely, however fantastic. He would not, however, be the first to admit (though perhaps he was the first to infer) that his ambition (which was considerable, even for a Slytherin of noble stock) was certainly the product of a childhood spent immersed in the expectations of others.

Growing up surrounded by a public convinced he would become the next Merlin, he developed a desire to avoid disappointing them. This desire persisted until his infamous sorting into Slytherin house, his experiences in which convinced him that one shouldn't pay much account to the public at all. But the seed had been planted, and a sapling sprouted. Cunning, however born, quickly crowds out whatever traits grow nearby, leaving sustenance only for those aspects of the human character that lead to greatness, to status, to success, to power. And so by fate, or hap, or crook, Harry Potter grew into an uncommonly skilled Slytherin, a snake born of lions, a great man born of the good.

And here he was now, living alone for the first time in his life, having graduated, not one month before, second academically only to Hermione Granger (of whose genius, no doubt, the reader does not need description). Rich, intelligent, well connected, he was free to do as he wished. And yet he was finding that, free from structure of Hogwarts (where he had lived, under the guardianship of the strict spinster Professor Minerva McGonagall, since the death of his parents sixteen years before) he was rather at a loss as to what to do. He wouldn't start his apprenticeship with Ollivander until mid-September. And so he had a whole summer to spend in relative isolation, and one can only read so much.

He said as much when Hermione stopped by for a visit. "One can only read so much, Hermione. I'm utterly bored. I read, I practice magic, I read some more. It's interminable." Hermione asked him if he'd tried going outside and talking to people. "I have Hermione, and I have rarely missed your company more. Are you aware that most everyone is a fool?"

"That theory has crossed my mind." Hermione said, sitting on the small conjured sofa which lay against the back wall of Harry's small studio. Harry himself was pacing around the room in that rather obsessive way one does when one has spent too long indoors, the body (starved of exercise) acting of its own accord

"I talk to them in the shops and I wonder if they are transfigured pigeons and then I remember..."

"Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration." Hermione said, laughing now.

"Exactly, one can only transfigure higher animals to lower animals. Though in the case of most people, pigeons are an improvement—we should really think about reorganizing the hierarchy. The boy who works at the herbalists, for example.."

"You mean Longbottom? A boy? He's the exact same age you are."

"Physically, perhaps, but his mind has yet to leave the womb."

Hermione held her hand out, laughing as she said, "Harry, I'm telling you this as a friend, you're babbling, on the edge of madness. You've been spending far too much time alone. Its unbecoming."

Harry stopped mid-pace, "Suppose I agree with your analysis. What am I to do about it. Whose company should I seek. You've spoiled me for other women. I've yet to meet one half as clever as you."

"Though you once met one more becoming,"

"One tires of an exceptional face, never an exceptional mind."

"If I recall correctly, it was her exceptional body you grew tired of."

"I thought we were done with this?"

"We are. You grew bored of her and I of you."

"Yet you visit me now and then."

"For your own wellbeing."

"Yet you care for my wellbeing?"

"I care as any friend would, and only so."

Harry made a face like a frustrated child. "Well, then what am I to do this summer, and with whom?"

Hermione closed her eyes as if tired. "Would you like me to introduce you to some of my clever friends from _Buex_ _Grandes Ecole_?"

Harry asked her if they were pretty, too. Hermione said they were. Harry smiled, "Your kind offer both pains and delights me.

Hermione gave him a disgusted look and said, "I assume that means you accept."

"Of course I accept." There was a short pause in the conversation before Harry said, "Would you accompany me to lunch?"

"You'd risk the fools?"

"That depends." Harry said, pulling his wand out of his pocket. "Are there fools in France?"

"Do you speak French?"

"No."

"Then," Hermione said as she smiled her perfect smile, "there are no fools in France."


	2. Chapter 2

Paris. The food is better, the service not at all atrocious, the city beautiful, particularly the bright street Harry and Hermione were walking down. Yet magic, it is sometime said, is weaker in France. Harry could feel this.

That is not to say that French wizards and witches are less powerful than their English equivalents, for magic is in the blood as much as the air, earth, water, and wind—and a Frenchman's blood is as strong as his wine, a Frenchwoman's much stronger still. Yet England, the birthplace of the first wand-wielder, holds a gentle magic of her own, which embraces every wizard and witch living within her sturdy shores. At least, that is what some say, and Harry felt. Hermione, however, was having none of it.

"Surely you don't buy that bullocks?" said Hermione to Harry, moments after they arrived on Champs-Élysées street with a pop.

"Don't you notice an absence? Some great embrace stolen, though you've never noticed its lack before?

"You feel what you wish to feel, Harry. And have the nerve to call others fools. You've read the books and heard the rumours, so you feel an absence because you think you ought to."

"Of all the lands in all the world, Merlin was born in England."

"He had to be born somewhere, Harry. If he were born in Egypt, some fool Egyptian wizard would be saying similar ridiculous things."

"And some wise Egyptian witch correcting him in haughty tones?"

Hermione smiled. "Wise, you say? That word implies wrinkles and age?

"Both of which you thankfully lack," Harry said. "Would it suit you more if I called her wise beyond her years?

"So quickly our Egyptian is transfigured from a wizened scholar to precocious child. Words are funny things. They morph and twirl, they follow rules yet often transcend them."

"Are you speaking of language or magic?" Harry said.

Hermione smiled a quick smile. "Poor child, you still draw lines between the two?"

Harry had nothing to say to that, so he took Hermione's arm in his and continued his pleasant walk, noticing for the first time the city around him, the small muggle shops—this one full of chocolates, another fine cheeses, another wooden toys, all gleaming with paint, bight as fresh flowes, as varied as any bouquet.

And the scenery was nothing to the sounds. What wondrous cacophony these French muggles made as they worked! The carriage drives talking gently to their horses, the nobles within whispering sweet words to their mistresses, all in a musical language Harry could not keen. Honeyed whispers lined with a guttural percussion, together a heady melody indeed.

"How I pity the Frenchman who visits England," Harry said. "Here they talk in music, rather then with our scrapes and squawks."

"You think their language beautiful because you don't understand it. You appreciate the tone because there is no meaning to distract your ear." Hermione as she lead Harry into a shop that all the muggles in the crowded street couldn't seem to see.

"Not at all," Harry said, "I think it's beautiful because it sounds so. I speak no German, yet I think it more homely even than our sorry tongue."

The shop they had entered was small and unoccupied, both of people and products. There was nothing to it but empty shelves, an unused desk, and a large painting of a university. Hermione dragged Harry towards the picture. The university portrayed was, Harry surmised, Grand Buex. It was a large complex built in the style of Versailles and surrounded by a several acres of elegant gardens and topiary.

"Still, you would not be so enamoured if you understood. It is so full of foolish trifles. Every object has a sex, for instance. Why give gender to a wand? " Hermione said as she pulled her own out of he pocket and tapped the portrait three times.

"And what gender do the French give the wand?" Harry said offhandedly.

Hermione laughed. "I should think that's obvious." Harry blushed. "A true Englishman. You are like a bad quill Harry, sharp yes, but you can grow very dull in an instant and at the strangest times. Harry blushed once more and Hermione walked into the portrait, giggling.

Harry followed her, realizing that it was not a painting any more, but a portal to the scene it had once portrayed.


	3. Chapter 3

A university in summer, the population dwindling. Students off working, professors busy with their research. A social world contracting, while the structure which contains it remains the same size, this making the whole place feel hollow, less alive yet comfortingly quiet. The gardens largely empty, save for a few pretty witches studying under a large, elephantine topiary. The only sounds that of the wind brushing through the grass, and muted shouts and grunts of students on broomsticks playing a casual game of quidditch with the clumsy grace of the amateur athlete, and, too, the thick mocking laugh of Hermione Granger, who was walking briskly ahead of Harry Potter as he ran, gaining on her and taking her arm.

"The quill has returned," she said.

"Yes." Harry grumbled.

"But the nub's still dull. You disappoint, I was sure would say something dreadfully clever."

"Forgive me, love, I'm quite overcome with grief."

"And why is that?" Hermione said, raising her eyebrow, though Harry, admiring the French wihiches by the topiary did not see.

"All this talk of sharpening quills. You take your knife and fashion a new nub. Well, it brought to mind an unsettling question.

Hermione nodded.

"What is the gender of the quill? And what does that say of Frenchwomen?"

Hermione laughed, nudged Harry with her elbow, and playfully slapped him on the chest. And then broke away from Harry and ran towards her dorm building

"I suppose you shall find out soon enough," She called back. And Harry ran after.

There is an elegance to a town which grows without design, a strange organic utilitarianism, houses and shops and roads and wells springing up as needed and without rational intention. Yet there is a beauty, too, in its opposite, in a world created all at once, by the enterprise of some great architect and the will of a many masters of transfiguration. The grounds of Grand Buex were entirely of this latter style. Every building sharing the same vastness and elegance. Fine stonework and sculpture, roofs of the best tile, brass metalwork framing windows and doors.

It was the very image of elegance, grace and exactness.

It suited Hermione quite well indeed.

Her dorm was a two-story building of the style described. Harry gathered it could shelter at least one hundred witches. Maybe two hundred if it's expanded with mageic, he thought as he ran after Hermione.

She kept her pace until she reached the building's door, at which point she stopped to catch her breath.

"Wait here. I just need to grab some sickles."

"And what for?"

"To buy you lunch, of course."

"You're quite the modern woman."

He made a motion towards to door. Hermione told him to stop.

"Yet you won't let me escort you to your room?"

"What a scandalous suggestion. Boys are not allowed." She smiled, opened the door with a tap of her want and walked inside. She turned to face Harry and closed it. With another tap, she locked it.

"Though not as modern as I would like," he whispered to himself as he sat down on the lawn in front of the building and waited for Hermione to return.


End file.
